“Start at the beginning and continue on until you reach the end. Then stop.”The King in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Or your gel melts. Or your stain focuses into a mysterious spot on the gel, not once, but twice. Or for some other inexplicable and unforeseeable reason, things go wrong. We do manage to solve these problems, but the fact is that they happen even when you do things exactly by the book. (By the way, when I say 'we' I mean Gareth and Chris, his postdoc).
And then there are times when it's down to simple human error. I've messed up seemingly simple procedures more times than I would like to admit. There was the one time when I mistakenly added loading buffer to my whole stock of purified plasmid vectors when I still needed them for ligation. Sigh. Wash, rinse, repeat.
More than a week's gone by now since I started this studentship, and I've been thoroughly enjoying it, don't get me wrong. Mistakes, well, they're a part of life, and we learn from them - that's why I applied for this studentship in the first place. Plus, for every mistake you make, chances are you're doing so many more things right.
To those of you reading this, it'd be great to hear about your experiences (especially the other students). I'm sure we could all use a little encouragement here!
And then there are times when it's down to simple human error. I've messed up seemingly simple procedures more times than I would like to admit. There was the one time when I mistakenly added loading buffer to my whole stock of purified plasmid vectors when I still needed them for ligation. Sigh. Wash, rinse, repeat.
More than a week's gone by now since I started this studentship, and I've been thoroughly enjoying it, don't get me wrong. Mistakes, well, they're a part of life, and we learn from them - that's why I applied for this studentship in the first place. Plus, for every mistake you make, chances are you're doing so many more things right.
To those of you reading this, it'd be great to hear about your experiences (especially the other students). I'm sure we could all use a little encouragement here!
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